High electromagnetic wave absorption and thermal management performance in 3D CNF@C-Ni/epoxy resin composites

Electronic packaging materials with efficient heat dissipation and anti-electromagnetic-interference performance are highly desirable to realize the long-term stable operation of highly integrated electronic devices. Such combined functions of heat dissipation and anti-electromagnetic-interference are achieved here by filling 3D CNF@C-Ni network skeleton in epoxy resins (EP). The CNF@C-Ni is a carbon nanofibers network skeleton embedded with micron flower-like C-Ni particles and has been obtained by carbonizing nickel metal–organic frameworks (Ni-MOF) embellished bacterial cellulose. The 3D CNF@C-Ni network skeleton provides a highly efficient heat transfer channel for EP, rendering a high thermal conductivity of 0.5 W·m−1K−1 at room temperature for the 5 wt% CNF@C-Ni filled EP, ~2.8 times higher than that of pristine EP. In addition, the flower-like C-Ni particles realize an optimization in the impedance matching of CNF@C-Ni/EP, enabling a high electromagnetic wave absorption performance in the wave-transparent epoxy resins. In particular, a lowest reflection loss value of −49.77 dB at 13.44 GHz with a maximum effective bandwidth of 5.44 GHz (from 12.08 to 17.52 GHz) has been achieved in the 5 wt% CNF@C-Ni filled epoxy resins with a thickness of 2.2 mm. Such a new dual-functionated epoxy resin with combined high electromagnetic wave absorption and thermal management performance shows great potential in manufacturing of highly integrated electronic devices.